


you still haunt the corners of my heart

by lostin_space



Series: quick little doodles [80]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22264558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostin_space/pseuds/lostin_space
Summary: It wasn’t very often that Michael could pinpoint the moment that things switched for Alex, but he saw it this time.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: quick little doodles [80]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1441564
Comments: 14
Kudos: 102
Collections: Roswell New Mexico ▶ Michael Guerin / Alex Manes





	you still haunt the corners of my heart

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: alex has ptsd from childhood trauma

It wasn’t very often that Michael could pinpoint the moment that things switched for Alex, but he saw it this time.

They were at The Wild Pony, drinking and joking with their friends. It was fun and Alex was fine, they were fine, everything was fine. It wasn’t until Isobel and Liz were seeing who could chug a beer faster and Isobel kept making a face and Max responded with a playful little ‘ _oh, come on, be a man!’._ That was it.

Michael saw the way his smile seemed to snap away and his shoulders squared. His eyebrows furrowed, his jaw tensed, and he glared down at his glass. The mood change was far too fast to be anything logical, so Michael reached out to touch his hand. Except the touch led to Alex flinching and looking at him in fear. 

“Hey, you wanna go get some fresh air?” Michael asked softly, trying not to feel hurt by the look on Alex’s face. He knew it wasn’t for him. It was for someone else that wasn’t around to even cause it.

Alex nodded easily and left without a word. Michael was the one who excused them and ignored the suggestive looks from his friends. They didn’t know and that was okay. It wasn’t theirs to know.

Michael walked out back and found Alex leaning against the wall beside the dumpster. His eyes were shut and he was doing breathing exercises, eyebrows still drawn taut as he tried to calm down. Michael gave him space to do so.

It took him longer than he wanted to admit to understand what Alex was feeling when things like that happened. For some reason, he hadn’t realized that he and Alex both were riddled with bullshit down to their earliest memories. He’d convinced himself that Alex’s problems started that day in the shed. He hadn’t entertained the idea that they started earlier.

Instead, it took months of piecing together all the little details that he really only saw when living with him. There were mornings Alex would wake up in a horrendous mood and there was no point in even going near him until he chose when to approach someone else. There were days that Alex would seem to shut off half his brain and just _work, work, work_ and not realize he hadn’t eaten or had stopped talking in the middle of a sentence or had seemingly turned off for hours. 

Then there were moments like this.

Something unimportant would happen and Alex would fill to the brim with emotion. Whether it be negative or positive, anxiety or anger, sadness or happiness, it was always _too much._

It was one of the things that Michael very rarely experienced, very rarely had pure bouts of emotional flooding, and that was the only reason he had for why it took him so long to catch on. For Alex, though, it happened multiple times a week. Things like a playful hit on the shoulders, things like seeing an angry driver, things like the suggestion that someone shave their head, things like oversleeping, things like _man up._

He could see the way it hurt him physically, the way he’d clutch his stomach or his head. He could see the way his hands shook and the way it stole his breath. He saw the way it ripped him of his focus and his energy.

And there wasn't a damn thing Michael could do about it.

“Can we go home?” Alex asked a few minutes later, “I’m tired.”

Michael gave a supportive smile and nodded.

**Author's Note:**

> also on my tumblr: spaceskam


End file.
